bruce takes the rap

So bruce needs a holiday?

Not too long steve, you've got a busy summer ahead of you, to try and get things right for next season, and bring all the doubters back onside.. Good luck



STEVE BRUCE admits he has not got the best out of Sunderland this season.
The Black Cats head into their final game at West Ham with the same 44-point tally they managed last term - despite Bruce splashing out £55million on players in his two-year reign.

A nightmare injury list and the shock January sale of Darren Bent to Aston Villa for £24m means 14th-placed Sunderland will be lucky to hit his aim of a top-10 finish.

Bruce said: "Could I have got more out of the players? Possibly. Could we have been six points better off? Yes, that's the frustration.

"For six months we were resilient and were hard to beat. Then, all of a sudden, we're not.

"I need a break as you can see by the state of me. It's been the toughest, most difficult three months I've had in 30 years in the game. It's been really frustrating and disappointing."

 

And thats why I like the man, he is honest, cares and doing his best. If he is not right then Short will decide but all this,"fat geordie" stuff pisses me off, not that I show it.

 

Guys, no one wants him to fail, or ANY Sunderland manager to fail but what we should demand is the best we can possibly do.

This last year hasn't been that at all. Everything at the club was set for a manager with any ability to take us forward and yet we narrowly avoided relegation AGAIN despite a huge investment from the owner.

You can make all the excuses you want for him and to be honest as a bloke he is an honest, sound north east lad who wears his heart on his sleeve - just as Alan Durban was; Denis Smith was; Malcolm Crosby, Mick Buxton, Ricky Sbragia and even Mick McCarthy was.

The common denominator (Denis Smith and Alan Durban apart maybe, as they actually achieved something better from nothing) is they are all nice blokes that failed.

The frustration is I would rather have a total bastard but who delivers on the pitch for a change.

Its not the fact that Bruce is a Geordie that pisses me off lads, its the continuation of yet another failed regime at the club delivering nothing but excuses and poor PR, in order to mask the disappointments on the pitch.

At least all the others named here can call upon the fact that there were financial restraints, Boardroom disruption, poor standard players and a run down stadium during their tenure. If we cant do any better than 14th, with all the positive things going at the club currently, then Bruce simply has no hiding places for me.

 

Never once have I attacked Steve Bruce as a human being and agree with Syd that personal insults are below the belt. Yes, his team selections have been questionable. Yes, his tactics have sometimes been found wanting. Yes, by his own admittance, the training regime has not been right. Yes, the transfer policy has a big question mark over it, with the sale of Bent and failure to recruit a short or long term solution to our shortage of strikers in January.

I've sat here for the last few minutes and tried to imagine myself in his shoes. Then I recalled the under fire Chief Executive of BP during the massive oil spill off the coast of America last year and compared his situation with that of Steve Bruce. Both men are (or were) the public figures of their organisations and both men have had to stand up in public and defend the way that their organisations are run. Both men have been publicly vilified for the failings of their organisations. Both men have been under intense pressure to put right the failings of their organisations and both men have had to take enormous criticism for the shortcomings of their organisations and support staff.

The support staff, or rather “self preservation society” has a lot to answer for in my opinion, but not one of them will stick their head above the parapet, for fear of being vilified in the same manner as the manager has been. The inability or reluctance of anyone at board or backroom level to come forward in defence of Steve Bruce is quite frankly appalling. I have a feeling that they are all giving him enough rope to hang himself, safe in the knowledge that they will escape any of the hostility from fans and the press.

Yes, Steve Bruce is paid a lot of money to manage our club, but every man has his limit. I and I suspect many of you, would almost certainly buckle under the immense pressure of managing Sunderland AFC and the expectations of its fans, but at the end of the day that is what he is paid for. Some of the TV interviews have been cringe worthy, with Steve Bruce coming out with the same excuses week after week. He appears on camera with a look of defeat on his face, sad “puppy dog” eyes, please feel sorry for me, because my squad is decimated with injuries. You don’t see this sort of behaviour from most managers, so this may be the chink in Steve Bruce’s armour, a sign of weakness and lack of strength of character to manage a club of our size.

I can feel a certain amount of sympathy for Steve Bruce and respect him as a person, however, I think he is out of his depth at our club and I think he knows he is which is why he is feeling sorry for himself. The strong willed managers, the likes of Moyes, SAF, and Pulis etc would never appear on TV looking like beaten men. They would look on the positives instead of the shortcomings of their squads and make the most of what they had available to them. Unfortunately, Steve Bruce does not have the ability to do this, preferring to pull on the heart strings of any fans that are willing to listen and feel sorry for him.

There is no room for sentiment in Premier League football. Only the strong survive.

 

That my friend is an excellent post.

 

I concur. Top quality and nails why Bruce is a spent force at SAFC in a nutshell.

Good bloke but out of his depth. He is a Wigan, Huddersfield or B'ham manager and not capable of taking us forward. I really hoped and believed he was the right man but the last 2 years have been very, very poor, given the money and freedom he has been afforded.

Many Keane haters would have slaughtered him for the results of the past 2 years, yet many would happily give SB another wedge of cash and another 2 years?

Strange world we footy fans live in?

 

There is not one person who comes on theses boards could cope with the pressure of being a football manager(myself included)

 

I'd enjoy spending the wages mind.

 

can't remember where i read it but it was in the last two days, but bruce said in an interview something along the lines of "look at me, i need a break, i want the season over". bardsley, mr sunderland, who has been running through brick walls for the cause all season, said a few weeks ago that he couldn't wait for the season to end. look at that table, if points were awarded based on half time scores. our attitude stinks. we have no confidence, bruce can't seem to get us playing with any confidence at all, there's no belief there, and that's why, though i'll back him if he stays, i think it's time for someone else to come in. under bruce, i have only ever seen us play with absolute confidence once, and that was the chelsea game earlier this season. that's not to say we haven't played well any other times, but we always look like a team waiting for something to go wrong, we never kill teams off. that's why i can't see us going any further under bruce. i hate to seem like i'm bandwagon jumping, just slagging him off, but a manager like moyes, o'neill, coyle, even the likes of pulis would not have allowed us to sink into the rut we are in, despite our injuries. their teams play to the best of their abilities. we have far superior players than most, way better than we have had in previous seasons, and yet we are barely up the table?? questions have to be asked of bruce, and the biggest question for me is "does he have the motivational skills to take decent players and make them play well in front of a big crowd, and drive them up the table, for an entire season?" so far the answer is no.

 

My wife would love the managers wages to spend#
Unfortunately she thinks i am on the same money ( I think i need a break)

 

he wont change my mind Syd, even when the cops catch someone they at least come clean and admit to it IE fair cop guv, his best isn't good enough, counting the days for a change, so we can get some one in who can take us forward.

 

now that's not a clever statement, there are people who have 2 as much pressure on these boards , a manager who has backing and funds cant help but succeed if he has the brain and the balls, the ones that fail have something missing from their repertoar

 

lovely Dorset but in or out?

 

He's taken us as far as his abilities will allow, so time for a change. We need someone of stronger character to take us forward.

 

What he said.

 

dats my boy, off the fence, with that statment 100%, if you were a lass id marry ya